Monthly Archives: June 2015

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Sunday night’s penultimate episode of Penny Dreadful Season Two left a lot of questions going into the finale, though many of them are well-answerable by the end of the season. A few hunches from earlier in the season were confirmed, and there were a few truly shocking moments as the show laid the framework for closing out season 2. (Warning: Spoilers lurk below!)

Roper, the survivor of Ethan’s werewolf attack on the Mariner’s Inn, has tracked Ethan and Vanessa to the Cut-Wife’s cottage. He barges in on them, ordering Vanessa to cuff Ethan. When he threatens her, though, Vanessa grabs a knife; in the scuffle, Ethan is stabbed in the shoulder and Vanessa pulls out the knife, using it to kill Roper.

Well, there’s that neatly wrapped, though there is still the Inspector to worry about. (Apparently, he’s traced down Ethan’s real name–Ethan Lawrence Talbot—and his military record. He seems on the cusp of realizing something supernatural, but using phantom limb to explain it was really bizarre.)

Anyway, Victor Frankenstein suddenly arrives in a coach, come to fetch Vanessa and Ethan to help Sir Malcolm. Lyle recounts his treachery, vowing to help the group in any way he can. Vanessa is ready to go into the witches’ den, insisting that they go that evening. Ethan protests because He Has a Thing (the kind that happens on the full moon, and guess what—the moon’s full!). Also, Ethan points out that the witches are stronger during the nighttime. I’m not sure if this is true, but I’m sure they aren’t called “nightcomers” because they do their best work in the daytime. It’s a sound enough theory, and everyone appears to agree.

Across town, Evelyn looks exhausted as she stands and listens to Sir Malcolm’s screaming. She’s leaning on the wall in the puppet room, but she still seems winded, and her skin has a clammy look to it. Hecate is more openly disdainful than before, more transparent about her feelings: her mother is old, and she is young; youth is everything. It’s only what she’s been taught.

Hecate decides to pay Ethan a bedroom visit. She’s still quite bent on corrupting him, and it just might work. It’d seem that Ethan would understand “wolf of God” as a good thing, but his fears about himself are sometimes what brings out the worst in him.

And speaking of the worst in Ethan…Everyone’s going to see it. Because suddenly, everyone notices that Vanessa is gone to rescue Sir Malcolm. And that’s exactly what the witches want. Ethan refuses to stay behind, chained up. He asks Sembene to do what must be done if the time comes.

Meanwhile, Lily and Dorian are chatting in Dorian’s portrait room. They’re both being a bit coy, figuring one another out. And then Dorian (who I’ve though this whole time must recognize her) calls Lily “Brona.” He does know, indeed. And Lily knows something, too. “How old ARE you” she purrs. She demands that he tell her what he is—-insists by biting off his ear and asking him to heal himself. And Dorian does. There are sexy-times, of course.

Across town, the Creature is not having nearly the day that Lily and Dorian are having. When Lavinia Putney asks him to take her to see the new wing of the museum that is under construction, he reluctantly does so. He sees rows and rows of cages, makes a joke about a zoo. All I can think is “run.” But he doesn’t. And in return, Lavinia locks him in one of the cages. The Putneys are, in fact, creating a zoo—only it’s a human one, and the Creature is their first capture. Oh, Mr. Clare. Oh, Caliban.

And finally, we’re back at the witches’ castle. The group splits up when they arrive: Sembene and Ethan go one way, while Lyle and Victor go another. It’s Victor and Lyle who find Sir Malcolm. When Victor goes into the room, he’s locked in by one of the witches. At first, Frankenstein’s mind is clear; he’s speaking with Sir Malcolm to try to get him to return home. But suddenly, he’s also talking to the Creature, and to Lily, and to…Proteus. Oh, Proteus.

Sembene and Ethan aren’t have much luck, either. A trap door closes, and they’re stuck, stuck in a tiny space with a full moon rising. Ethan is panicked; he tries to kill himself. Sembene intervenes, though. “I’m just a man,” he says. “You have been chosen by God, my friend.” A few moments later, a werewolf version of Ethan lunges at Sembene. Nooooo!

Upstairs, Vanessa walks into the puppet room. She sees the doll like her. But then—it opens its eyes. Eep! And oh, it starts speaking. “Murderer,” it says.

*Shudder*

Next week, it looks like we’ll see the final battle with the witches. I’m also hoping we’re going to get a teaser introduction to Dracula, since we’ve now learned that he’s Lucifer’s other half/brother/hell-spawn-compatriot.

In my last couple of posts, I blogged about the over-emphasis on messages and morals in deciding the value of a children’s story. I’d like to continue that line of thought today and talk a little about the development of modern cartoons.

Until about 30 years ago, there was no concept that movies or television programs could be recorded and packaged for future generations to buy. Social values were very different, and it wasn’t considered the responsibility of authors or entertainment companies to provide social lessons for their audiences in the same way it is today. Socially relevant content and messages were there, but they were usually less overt or at least less connected to social and political consciousness. Movies and TV programs with questionable “messages” were shocking and largely boycotted. Ones with acceptable messages were held up, the same way they are today. The difference is that today we seem to have a blanket assumption that animation studios are supposed to be a surrogate parents and have a responsibility to provide role models for children.

That began in the 1980s, and most of the reasons for it are related to marketing. For the first time, lots of people had home entertainment systems and access to a catalog of older cartoons that no one anticipated would gain such a wide audience. We also had a dramatic change in laws around marketing during children’s programming. That led to a whole plethora of cartoons that were intended as half-hour toy ads. Most of these cartoons created moral segments or life lessons as a way to offset the intense pressure from parents’ groups who didn’t want toy-ads like this directed at their children.

Thirty years later, we have three generations of Western children who have grown up with cartoons teaching them “lessons.” There are good and bad aspects to that. I’m obviously a huge fan of He-Man and the Masters of the Universe, which was the first ever half-hour syndicated cartoon program that was written to run every afternoon. Several of my friends enjoy My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic. Both of those programs have episodes that basically run around “teachable moments.”

There’s nothing wrong with that, but there’s an ENORMOUS problem with adults who make statements like “He-Man is better than anything running today because it always had a moral at the end,” or “I refuse to let my daughter watch Disney movies because the princesses are interested in marriage and that makes them bad role models.”

Yes, I have in fact heard both of those things.

On the other side of the issue, the fact that putting life-lessons in these stories was motivated by marketing doesn’t mean that the stories or the lessons they include have no value. There are marketing concerns associated with any film or television production. It’s important to be aware of that and to be discerning, but I think it’s more important to take responsibility for educating our kids instead of foisting off that responsibility onto animation studios and then complaining when the studio doesn’t step up adequately. Exactly whose responsibility is it to guide our children and to make sure they know the difference between real and pretend? I sure don’t think the answer is “animation studios.”

And because I’m feeling snarky, here are some more He-Man morals for your viewing pleasure.

I addressed readers directly often during the first year this blog was posting. I’ve done that less and less as our contributor base has grown, because one of my goals for this year was to make Sourcerer a seamless pop culture blog. Since I’ve been scarce around here for the last month, we’ve missed some days, and we’ve had no afternoon photos since May, here’s a quick run-down so you’ll know what to expect from me, and from this blog, through the fall.

Arrr, mateys!

The main thing you can expect is more written posts from me, and more personal engagement on the comment threads. The blog has suffered from my absence this month, and that’s not surprising. I’ve seen it happen before both here and at Part Time Monster. It’s not a cause for concern — periodic absences are a part of blogging, and I’m sure we’ll do better once I’m able to give the blog more attention.

July 4 is a week away. That’s my target date for the slowdown. Doesn’t mean we’re going away, and it’s my goal to update this blog daily year-round, but our schedule during the second half of the year is lighter, and includes more photoblogging, video posts, and reblogs.

Our Silly Rabbit (Monday) and Penny Dreadful (Tuesday) features will finish their runs in the next few weeks. I’m not sure what we’ll do on those days during late July and early August. We’ll continue to have an interview on the first Monday of every month, and I’m considering increasing the frequency of those, because they’re fun and popular.

Comics on Wednesdays is still the top priority.

Throwback Thursdays will continue until I run out of Tolkien posts, so at least through mid-August.

We’ve moved the Weekend Music back to Fridays. On weeks when we don’t have anything else to post on Saturdays, Weekend Music will run on Saturday mornings and Friday will be an off-day.

Star Wars Saturdays, our newest feature, are as high on my list of priorities as comics. I’d like to build this feature into a consistent staple here and write a few of them myself, but that will take some time, and we may miss a few weekends in the next month or two.

Sundays, typically, are either an off day or the day I post social media-oriented things like quarterly stats, Twitter geekery, etc.

We have space for another contributor or two. I’m not going all-out with recruitment, nor am I particularly concerned about a lack of content. But if you’re interested, read our For Contributors page.

Basically, the way I handle contributions is to have people who want to contribute pitch ideas, then brainstorm and tweak them together until we find something that fits. I’ve accepted everything from one-shot guest posts up to long weekly runs in the past, so frequency isn’t an issue as long as we know you well enough to grant you author access to the dashboard and you have the ability to deliver finished posts which include at least one shareable image.

This is where we are. A big thanks to all the friends and contributors who have kept the content flowing during my recent troubles. Once I’m satisfied that I’ve re-established a sufficient personal presence here, I’m back to Twitter and to a few social blogging activities that fell off my radar in June.

After David’s post about the franchise’s video games last weekend, I thought it made for the perfect opportunity for a Favorite Video Games Star Wars Saturday! With the large choice we have, I thought it would be difficult to pinpoint favorites. Against all odds, I came up with mine more easily than I had expected! Of course, the fact I only play RPG types of Star Wars games helped, just as naming series of games rather than individual titles did!

Source: Wookieepedia.

Dark Forces / Jedi Knight Series

These games aren’t young anymore but I still like them a lot. I played them as they were released and had a great time with each new title. Dark Forces was basic in visuals but I spent hours shooting things on it. The live-action cinematics of Jedi Knight were epic and Jan Ors is still a favorite female character of mine. I remember being so excited about the Mysteries of the Sith companion game, which featured Mara Jade. I was happy to have family in the US who could bring it to me as a gift when visiting, as finding it in France wasn’t an option at the time. I recently played Jedi Academy again and the experience was still good. I need to go back to Jedi Outcast because I don’t remember much about it!

Source: technologytell.com

Knights of the Old Republic Series

KOTOR I and II were my introduction to Bioware games and my love for them has never diminished since then. I love the Bioware Star Wars games as much as the Dragon Age and Mass Effect franchises! KOTOR I was my first ‘big’ RPG game, I think. When I can play a female character, I always do, which means that in my mind, Revan is a woman. So, the canon male Revan isn’t the only one existing in my head. The first time I played KOTOR II, I wasn’t so sold on it compared to the first one. When I played it for the second time last winter (years after my first round), I was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed it.

Source: swtor.com

Star Wars: The Old Republic

I never got into any MMORPG before SWTOR, even though I tried WoW. This type of game wasn’t to my taste. Then, I got sucked into SWTOR since the original early access. I have never regretted it. So far, I have finished the original game with all eight classes and enjoyed every story. I am in the process of experiencing the two first expansions on the imperial side (as I finished them with my Jedi Knight). I love the game’s narratives and the character development you can have. There are aspects I am not familiar with (I never did an Operation) or not interested in (Space Battles and Starfighter) but many others I enjoy a lot besides the main game, like PvP Warzones or the amazing new feature the Solo Flashpoints are!